Welcome to Day 3 of Janet and Randy's Turkish Adventure 2015
Sunday, March 29th, 2015
Hello, I thought I'd start of the journal today and
give Janet a bit of a break. We were told yesterday that Turkey will
convert over to Day Light Savings time on Sunday Morning. Considering
we changed over 2 weeks ago in North America, it seemed a bit odd... but ok.
We woke up at what we thought was 9:30, but ended up being 8:30.
Considering we went to bed at 11p the previous evening the rest was very
welcomed after a long travel day.
We very slowly got ready and by the time we got to
the restaurant, they were about to close up the morning buffet. The
buffet and food was very impressive. So many different types of foods
to try. We finished breakfast and then decided that we wanted to get
SIM cards and a prepaid plan for our mobile phones. So we headed over
to the mall that we saw last night and found a Vodafon store. The
sales guy helping us struggled with English, but we really appreciated his
help. He got us SIM cards and a plan. It was pretty simple and
inexpensive. He did say that it would take a couple of hours for the
phone card to activate.
We went to the Metro station and realized that we
needed a Metro card (Istanbulkart). We couldn't locate a place to go
buy the card, so we ended up wandering around a bit. Eventually we
found a little store that was on the street that sold the card. The
guy told us that we only needed one card and could share it. So we
loaded it with some Turkish Lira and off we went.
We
wanted to head to the Sultanamet area. We had figured it out
previously that we would need to take the Metro (underground), to the
Funicular, and then to the Tram. Of course with each of these they are
separate fares. Considering how fare we had to go it seemed like a bit
of a flawed system. Oh well, this city is a few thousand years old,
and it's better than what my home town has to offer.
We got to the Sultanamet area and started to wander
around. We headed to Hagia Sophia...
Being a Sunday, it was rather busy in the Sultanamet area. We did
some wandering around, just looking at the magnificent buildings.
There was a large lineup to get into the Hagia Sophia, so we decided to walk
around the outside of it. On the backside, we noticed an entrance to
the Hagia Sophia tombs. There was no charge to get in, and there was
no line, so we decided to check it out.
There were 4 different buildings with the tombs of sultans in them.
The insides had amazing stained glass windows and designs. These were
just the tombs, and not inside the actual mosques.
We
wandered down a side street and checked out a restaurant called Seven Hills
that has a rooftop terrace with amazing views of both the Blue Mosque and
Hagia Sophia. We weren't really hungry at the time, but thought it
might be good to go back in the evening and check out the night view.
We headed over to the Blue Mosque to see if there was a big lineup to get
in. We walked through a courtyard to get to the entrance. At
first I thought the line wasn't that bad, but then realized that it snaked
back around the building. So, we decided to pass on entering at this
point. We'll come back during the week when it isn't as busy.
We had spent a few hours wandering around and were getting tired
(and solicited by numerous people to buy rugs, or take
their tours).
So, we went to the tram to head back to the hotel. There was quite a
crowd waiting for the tram, and when the tram arrived, it was already full.
So, we ended up being crammed into the tram with a bunch of people
(more pushed into the tram that crammed).
After a couple of stops, the tram emptied out a bit, so we were able to snag
2 seats for the remainder of the trip.
From the tram, we took the funicular, and then the metro to get back.
The metro stop was right near the shopping centre. Since our phones
still hadn't activated, we went back into the Vodafon store to see the guy
that had helped us earlier. It took a little bit, but he finally
figured out that the money we paid hadn't been transferred from the store to
the carrier. So, we were able to get our internet and calling working.
However, we weren't able to text each other, or the salesman in the store
that was on the Vodafon network. So, it might just be a network issue.
But the main thing was getting the internet, so we weren't too worried about
it.
Once that was settled, we headed back to the hotel and went up to the
club lounge for some drinks and snacks. It doesn't seem that people
here put ice in their drinks as the hotel itself doesn't have any ice
buckets or ice machines, and there wasn't any ice machine or bucket in the
club lounge. Last night when we were in the lounge, we had asked if we
could get some ice for our drinks. So, the lounge worker went into the
kitchen and came back with a bowl of ice for us. When we arrived into
the lounge this afternoon, he immediately disappeared into the kitchen and
came back with a bowl of ice for us without us even asking! Now that's
service! Dude is awesome !
We relaxed in the lounge for a bit, and then went back to our room and
spent time organizing photos and working on the journal. After hanging
out for a while, we decided we better head out and get some supper. I
found a place on Yelp called Dogu Karadeniz Pide Sarayi. It is a soup,
salad and pide place. Pide is like a Turkish flatbread. We had a
cheese and beef pide (the beef was actually a beef pepperoni-type sausage).
It was tasty, and had some other spices that made it taste much different
than a normal flatbread/pizza you would find at home. Luckily we had
decided to split one, because it was very filling!
Then it back to the room to relax. Need to hit the bed early as we
have a food tour to get up for the next morning.
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